Chapter 21 - Calebs Secret (1/2)

Gray felt his heart drop slightly when he recognized the voice coming from behind him, then immediately did his best to hide his emotions.

"Kyam? Is that you? How've you been?" replied Gray to the guy who called out to him a moment ago.

The man was Kyam Berlin, a face Gray was trying to forget. He was a little shorter than Gray with neatly cut blonde hair wearing a business suit, which seemed a little out of place for a gaming conference. Gray and Kyam both originally went to the same Military school, Washington Military Academy, and even started in the same classes, but Gray left when he wanted to change majors and follow his own path instead of what his high school recommended. Gray didn't like being called dropout, but he couldn't exactly refute the point either as he did leave after his 2nd year.

"I've been excellent obviously, I've been assigned to lead a squad by the federal military branch in Washington City. The military was given 200 of the 800 total Diamond-tier slots and we've been tasked with leading normal players and finding potential recruits. How'd you even get one?"

Yep, that's the one thing Gray really didn't like about this guy. Kyam gave off a typical self-entitled demeanor and would always find ways to inflate his own importance. Gray imagined this was probably the norm for the upper echelons of politics and military leadership, but that didn't mean it was acceptable.

"Oh, I won mine. Typical Main Character Luck and plot convenience honestly" replied Gray honestly.

"Main Character Luck and plot convenience, what are you talking about?"

Gray turned to look at you, the reader, then whispered "Sorry, won't happen again"

"Never mind that, I just got lucky is all" laughed Gray.

"That's no surprise, I would've been very disappointed if you had earned it as it would mean that many of the other Diamond Tier slots would also be taken by other dropouts and losers" said Kyam with a hint of malice.

"Yeah…" Gray didn't have much else to reply with at this point so he just looked down while scratching the back of his head.

"Oh, I'm sure you heard that Kelly Lagerty and I are… temporarily taking a break… she was also given a squad to lead so don't bother her." Kyam replied.

Gray hadn't heard from Kelly since he left the academy so he thought that it wouldn't be a problem since last time he saw her in passing, she pretended like he didn't exist.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll make sure not to disturb her in game."

"Good, now excuse us, we've been invited to a panel discussing strategy and how to apply it to Alterra Online. Gray, you should come, you could learn something!" Kyam said while walking past Gray and the others to take the elevator down to the main floor with 7 other squad members all dressed in similar professional attire.

As Kyam and his squaddies left, Caleb walked over to Gray and said "Don't worry, I may consider you inferior and below average in many aspects, but don't think too much about what Kyam said. Looking at his voiceprint my AI recorded, Kyam appears to be slightly intimidated by you. Also, I noticed that Kyam keeps his feet apart roughly three inches less than the average male of his height when standing still naturally despite wearing fairly tight pants. What this implicates is that Kyam has much less 'packaging' to get in the way between his legs."

Gray looked at Caleb. "Thanks, I'm sure in your own way you're trying to console me, but I really could've done without that last part. It doesn't so much amaze me that you made that analysis based on how wide he keeps his feet apart, but that enough people took measurements of it to create a standard for it."

"He's making that up right?" asked Jono.

"I… don't want to look it up to find out" replied Gray.

As the three walked together to the elevator, both Gray and Jono walked with their feet spaced a little wider than normal after thinking about Caleb's analysis of how standing width correlated to the amount of 'packaging' between one's legs.

__________

In one of the balconies across from Gray's, Kelly Lagerty and her squad were enjoying themselves making fun of the other players as most of their moves appeared amateurish and wasteful in the promotional video, especially the ones that would wave their guns while shooting at a single target.

Kelly wasn't a gamer at all, but she had to admit that the realism that Alterra Online offered piqued her interest and she saw the value of it as a training tool since real wars never happened in this modern age. Why did wars cease? It was no longer profitable like it was in the past. As much as people would gush about freedom and fighting for justice, almost all wars were fought for greed, as in someone wanted something that someone else had and so they would take it from them. It was strange to have an active military in a warless society, but it was considered precautionary. Just because it wasn't profitable right now didn't mean that it wouldn't be in the future through future developments.

Kelly was assigned four other female cadets to her squad that were some of the best pilots in her generation. The main reason wasn't because the military academy was being sexist or anything, but Kelly had chosen the team name "Strike Maidens" and the male members of her squad all asked to be transferred since they didn't want to be a "Strike Maiden".